THE FINANCING OF THE PENSIONER'S ASSOCIATIONS IN ITALY

IN Italy there is not one single system in regards to financing the Associations. Each one of the Associations establishes their own annual quota. It is important to remember that up to now the Asso­ciations in general have taken advantage of com­pany hospitality using their premises, office equip­ment and material, etc. I said “generally” because there are a lot of differences between one company and another in this sector. Indeed, there are many Associations that have set up their own premises and equipment or at least they have included them. Having said that, it is necessary to analyse the work done by the Association and how the mem­bers participate in the social organisation's work and what such an organisation thinks about the Associations tasks and the member's willingness's to work voluntarily.

If we were to simplify all these matters we would see that in the majority of cases there are very dif­ferent association quotas that depend on the cate­gory that a member belongs to when he or she reti­res, this goes from 8 - 10 euros a year up to a maximum of 70 - 80 euros a year. In very few cases the quota is equal to a per­centage of the gross pension received in the month of January or spread out over the year as a percentage in monthly instalments which creates a better balanced distribution.

It is obvious that in many cases the contribution received by the members is minimal and up to now the work has been carried out thanks to company contributions. The last part of the sentence is written in the past tense because with the mergers that have occurred and which are still in progress within the banking system nearly all the monetary benefits have been sus­pended and in some cases premises and equipment are no lon­ger made available, thus obliging the Associations to look for other central offices and deal with new expenses in order to be able to carry out their work.

In turn the Associations pay an association fee to the Fede­ration in various instalments and which is reduced depending on the number of members, with a minimum and maximum contri­bution: in short, starting with a contribution that drops 1 euro per member up to a minimum of 0, 25 euro per member. A mini­mum quota of € 150,00 is also established and a maximum quota of € 2.500,00. (The Federation is made up of 31 asso­ciations out of which 14 have less than 500 members; 9 with between 500 and 1.000; 5 with between 1.000 and 2.500 members; and 3 with between 5.000 and 7.000. members).

We have to make one point very clear if we want to unders­tand the current problems faced by the Associations in terms of survival The distribution Pension Funds that exists in different companies and which represents a nexus for the Associations, according to the Social Security system reform that is still under­way, have become closed end Funds, which is to say, they do not get any new registrations. In fact there are new Capitalisation Funds available for those who started in the banking system after the introduction of the “Amato Reform”. Therefore if the Asso­ciations continue with the same pre-existing situation very soon their possibilities of being able to take part in the Social Security both from a national and also a business point of view will be reduced. For this reason, some of the associations have adapted their statute to give active workers the chance to register them­selves with the common aim of creating a Social Security system that offers the maximum security at retirement.

Of course the best and most democratic system would be that of percentage system which a few associations have alre­ady implemented and which contemplates opening up to colle­agues in service. Sometimes however a certain vagueness and apathy is shown towards events that complicate the task o defending both current and future pensioner's rights and that as a last resort, is our main objective.

Franco Salza
President of the Group